BV 4580 
.B3 
1859 
Copy 1 



BV 4580 
.B3 
1859 
Copy 1 



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A SERMON 



DELIVERED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, 
NOVEMBER 28, 1858, 



BV 



ALBERT BARNES. 



SECOND EDITION. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PARRY & M c M I L L A N. 

1859. 




A SERMON 



DELIVERED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, 
NOVEMBER 28, 1858. 



V 



BY 



ALBERT BARNES. 



SECOND EDITION. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PARRY & M C MILLAN. 

1859. 



Tff£ LIBRARY 

Ob Congress 

WASHINGTON 






Collins, Printer. 



An apology seems to be necessary for publishing a 
sermon having so much reference to my own life and 
opinions as this has. It is easy to conceive that cir- 
cumstances may exist which would make it proper for 
a pastor thus to allude to himself in preaching, though 
they might not justify a more extended publication 
than that which is necessarily made in the pulpit. 

The following discourse was preached, without 
having been written, on a rainy day, when compara- 
tively few persons were present. Some who were 
present have expressed a desire to possess it, and 
some who were absent have expressed a wish to know 
what was said on the occasion. It has accordingly 
been written out, as nearly as could be recollected, in 
the language in which it was delivered, though some- 
what enlarged in the process of committing it to 
paper. It contains sentiments which I regard as 
important, and which I would wish to commend to 
those who are entering on life ; and, if it has nothing 
else worthy of attention, it has one feature at least 
which I would hope may be useful. It will show that 
a man who has reached an age at which he can hope 



for little from the world, may take a cheerful and 
hopeful view of life — a view which may do something 
to stimulate those who are about to engage in the 
struggles, to meet the temptations, and to bear the 
burdens of life ; that a man who has reached the last 
stage of his journey may see much to live for on 
earth — much to encourage those who are just entering 
on their way. At the risk, therefore, of a charge of 
vanity which could not, I confess, be very easily replied 
to, but with, as I would hope, so prevalent a desire to 
do good as to justify what I am doing even with this 
risk, the sermon is committed to the press. 

Albert Barnes. 
Philadelphia, Dec. 31, 1858. 



^bkrfeflttmt to % jJwtmb (Ebitim 



I had no expectation that a second edition of this 
sermon would be demanded. It was not stereotyped, 
and I anticipated only a very limited sale, and sup- 
posed that that would be confined mostly to my own 
congregation. It is equally surprising and gratifying 
to me to learn from the publishers that it has received 
such favour as to justify them in issuing a new edition. 
The discourse was designed to show that a cheerful view 
of life may be taken by a man who has come near to 
its last stage, and who can expect little more from 
earth ; that such a man may feel that there is much 
that is worth living for, even when he has a prospect 
and a hope of a better life than this; that it is not 
necessary that one who is growing old should feel 
that the world is becoming worse, or that all plans 
for its improvement have failed; and especially that 
temperance, industry, and religion will do much to make 
life prosperous, and old age, when it comes, genial and 



6 

bright, — will lead to grateful reflections on the past, 
and to a happy anticipation of the closing scene. 

From the demand for a new edition of the discourse, 
I infer that men are willing to take these views of 
life, and to welcome such words from one who has 
arrived at a period at which he ought to be qualified 
to say something as to what life is. I send forth this 
new edition, therefore, essentially unaltered, grateful 
for the manner in which the former edition has-been 
received, and as furnishing another illustration of one 
of the main points in the sermon itself, — that the world 
will welcome any efforts which are made to promote 
the cause of truth and virtue. 

Albert Barnes. 

Philadelphia, Feb. 23, 1859. 



LIFE AT THREE-SCORE. 



God, thou hast taught me fkom ky youth : and hitherto 
have i declared thy ttondrous works. !n~0w also. .... 
God, eorsake me not ; until I hate showed thy strength 

UNTO THIS GENERATION, AND THY POWER TO EVERY ONE IHAT IS 

to come. — Psalm bad. 17, 18. 

The occasions are rare on which it is proper 
for a minister of the gospel to obtrude himself) 
or his private concerns, on the attention of his 
people. He has. indeed, like other men. his 
own private history — the history of his feelings 
and opinions ; his struggles and conflicts ; his 
successes and reverses ; his trials and comforts ; 
his hopes and fears. All these are of great in- 
terest to him. but in themselves they are of no 
more importance than the same things as they 
occur in other men. He may also have arduous 
labours to perform in his profession, but so have 
other men in theirs ; and I have not learned 
that the work of the ministrv is anv more ar- 



8 Life at Three-Score. 

duous, or more beset with cares and trials, than 
the path of men engaged in other callings of 
life. Merchants, farmers, lawyers, physicians, 
teachers, have their own history, and their own 
struggles, and I know not why such private 
matters have any more claim to public atten- 
tion, or to public sympathy, when they occur 
in the lives of ministers of the gospel, than 
when they occur in the lives of men occupied 
in other professions. 

Influenced by considerations such as these, 
I have never, in the thirty-four years of my 
ministry, — twenty-eight of which have been 
spent in your service, — regarded my own work 
as of sufficient public interest to lead me to 
preach a sermon on the anniversary of my 
ordination or installation, nor have I been ac- 
customed to allude to myself, or to my private 
feelings, any further than occasionally to illus- 
trate some point connected with the work of 
religion in the soul. This I have supposed 
was to some extent allowable, for it sometimes 
occurs that there is no way of illustrating the 
nature of religion, or of describing the Chris- 



Life at Three-Score. 9 

tian warfare, better than that which is de- 
scribed from personal experience. 

If I live three days longer, however, I shall 
have reached a period of life which seems to 
me to make it proper to depart for once from 
the rule which I have prescribed for my con- 
duct; a period not only of great moment to 
myself, but eminently favourable for taking a 
view of life as it appears in the past, and in 
the future. A man who has reached the six- 
tieth year of his life ought to be able to give 
some views of living which will be worth the 
attention of those who are starting on the 
way; he ought to be able to offer some counsel 
which it would be wise and safe for those who 
are young to follow; he ought to be able so to 
speak of the temptations of the world as to 
show how they may be avoided or overcome ; 
he ought to be able to say something which 
will encourage the next generation in the 
duties of life ; he ought to be able to utter some- 
thing bright and hopeful in regard to the pros- 
pects which are to open upon the world which 
he is soon to leave — bright and hopeful in re- 



10 Life at Three-Score. 

gard to the world to which he is so soon 
to go. 

Any young man has a right to ask a man of 
sixty, How life seems to him now? How has 
the reality been as compared with the antici- 
pation ? How does the world appear now, as 
contrasted with the vision which rose before 
the mind of the boy when he sat by his father's 
fireside and formed in imagination his plans for 
future years ; or when from College Halls he 
looked out on the world on which he was soon 
to enter ; or when he left the place where he 
had performed the duties of a clerk or appren- 
tice to go out, cheerful or sad, to make his way 
in the world? Has the world been what it 
promised? Or are those visions all illusory 
and vain ? What is there, as seen by a man 
of sixty, which is worth living for? What 
should be sought by those entering on the jour- 
ney? What should be avoided? 

At this period of my life, therefore, will you 
permit me so far to depart from my usual 
course, and from what seems to me to be usu- 
ally proper in this place, as to say some things 



Life at Three-Score. 11 

in a plain way of myself, as to what I have 
found life to be, and how it seems to me now ? 

Mr. Hume, in his well- written autobiography, 
says, " It is difficult for a man to speak long 
of himself without vanity ; therefore," says he, 
"I shall be short/' I am sensible of this dan- 
ger, and I will endeavor not to expose myself 
to this charge. If I do, it shall be but once. 

What then have I found life to be ? How 
does it seem to me now ? 

The first thing which I have to say is, that 
I have found it to be all, and more than all, 
that I had hoped ; all, and more than all, that 
it promised. In other words, I have now a 
higher idea of life as such — of the desirableness 
of living — than I had at the outset. It seems 
to me to be a greater matter by far to live, and 
to carry out the real purposes of life, than it 
did when I began my course. 

I mean by this, that there is more that enters 
into the idea of living — of living in this world. 
It is a greater matter. It is a more desirable 
thing. There are more things to be accom- 



12 Life at Three^ Score. 

plished ; more to interest the mind, to win the 
heart, to impart happiness ; more to make it a 
serious matter to leave the world at all — to leave 
, it with no prospect of returning to it again. 

I know that this is contrary to the impres- 
sion which is commonly entertained in regard 
to the feelings of a man as he approaches the 
period when, in the ordinary course of things, 
he must expect soon to die. The impression 
of the young commonly is, that when a man 
approaches the end of life, the objects which 
may have been so interesting to him at first 
must cease to interest him; that, as he has 
secured all the honour which he can hope to 
obtain, and gained all the wealth which he can 
hope to acquire, and tasted all the pleasures 
which he can hope to enjoy, life can have little 
to attract him then, or, in other words, that 
he can see little then which would be worth 
living for. 

That this may occur, I cannot doubt ; but it 

"is not so with me, and this is not the view which 

I now take of living in this world. Life, as 

such, has now more to interest me than it has 



Life at Three-Score. 13 

had at any former period ; more than it had 
when I looked out upon it in the bright visions 
of youth, or than it has had at any stage of my 
progress through the world. There is more to 
learn; more to do; more in the world than 
I supposed ; more to make it a matter of regret 
that it must be left. 

I do not refer here to the things which oc- 
cupy the attention of so large a portion of 
mankind, and which constitute, in their appre- 
hension, all that there is in living ; the desire 
of wealth, fame, pleasure. Of the first of these, 
as a motive for living, I have never been, to 
my recollection, conscious at any time, nor am 
I conscious of it now. The second of these I 
confess I have indulged to a degree which I 
cannot now justify, and I cannot but feel that 
I may have been influenced by it even when I 
have supposed that I was acting from higher 
motives ; but I have aimed to subdue it, and to 
keep it subordinate to a higher end, the desire 
to honour God. The third of these, whatever I 
may have felt in my earlier days, in common 
with others as they enter on life, I trust has 



14 Life at Three-jScore. 

been subdued by the grace of God, by advanc- 
ing years, and by the growth of higher princi- 
ples of action. When, therefore, I spoke of the 
world as more desirable to live in than it 
seemed to me at the beginning, I mean the 
world as such — as a part of the universe of 
God — as a place where He is developing his 
great plans ; and when I speak of life as seem- 
ing more desirable to me now than ever before, 
I refer to it in reference to the great objects 
for which it was given, and to what may be 
done in securing those objects. 

I will specify a few things as illustrating 
this idea : — 

This is a different world from what it was . 
sixty years ago. The universe, if I may so 
express it, is larger than it was then ; the earth 
is more ancient and more grand. It is true, 
indeed, that to the eye of an Omniscient Being 
the universe is the same ; but it is more vast 
and grand as it appears to man. Every sixty 
years of the earth's history, except perhaps the 
period of the dark ages, has made the world 
different; but no period of sixty years has made 



Life at Three-Score. 15 

so great a change as that to which I now refer. 
The universe to human view is inconceivably 
more extended. There is not a science whose 
boundaries have not been greatly enlarged. 
Many of the most important discoveries in 
science, and inventions in the arts, which are 
to be developed in their influence on following 
ages, have started into being in groups and 
clusters. Worlds and systems have been 
brought into view unknown to man before. 

The universe above is greater. During all 
that period, the astronomer has been pointing 
his telescope to the heavens, and penetrating 
the fields of blue ether, and revealing to man 
the wonders of the distant heavens; enlarging 
the universe by all those measureless distances 
through which the eye has been made to pene- 
trate. New stars have been discovered and 
mapped on the great chart of the heavens ; a 
new planet as belonging to our system has been 
found from the fact of its disturbing influence 
on those before known — a planet on which no 
human eye ever before rested ; a vast number 
of asteroids, fragments of a larger planet, have 



16 Life at Three- Score. 

been seen to revolve between the orbit of Mars 
and Jupiter; and distant nebulae, floating 
islands in the measureless distance, have been 
brought into view, and resolved into distinct 
and separate worlds. 

The world beneath is greater and more won- 
derful than it was. The microscope was indeed 
known, as was the telescope, sixty years ago ; 
but it had but just begun to reveal the world 
beneath us. It has not finished its work, but 
it has already disclosed a universe beneath us 
as unlimited and as wonderful as that above us. 
It has peopled every leaf in the forest, and 
every drop of water in rivulets, lakes, and 
oceans, with teeming multitudes of inhabitants, 
amazing us as much by their number, and by 
the delicacy, skill, and beauty of their organi- 
zation, as the telescope does by the number 
and the magnitudes of the worlds above us. 
We find ourselves as men standing thus in a 
universe extending inimitably above and below 
us, as incomprehensible on the one hand as on 
the other : boundless space above filled up with 
worlds where we thought there was an empty 



Life at Three- Score. 17 

void, and beneath countless myriads of beings 
starting into life, and playing their little part, 
where all seemed to be blank. 

Our own earth is vaster and more grand 
than it was. Half a century ago, the prevail- 
ing — the almost universal — belief was, that 
the earth was created six thousand years ago, 
in its essential structure as it is now — rocks, 
and seas, and rivers, and hills having been 
called into existence as they now are, by the 
immediate command of God. It began, in- 
deed, to be whispered that it is older, and that 
important changes had occurred upon the earth 
before man appeared on it ; or that the earth 
had a history before the history of the human 
race. I remember in one of the earliest stages 
of my education, meeting with a remark by 
Dr. Chalmers, designed to solve some of the 
growing difficulties from the new science of 
geology, that between the first and second 
verses of the Book of Genesis there might be 
supposed to have intervened an indefinite 
period of which no account was given, the pur- 
pose of inspiration having been first to attest 

2* 



18 Life at Three- Score. 

the general truth that "God created the heavens 
and the earth" or to secure this belief in the 
minds of men in opposition to the idea that the 
world is eternal^ or is the work of fate or 
chance, and then, without detailing the inter- 
mediate history of the globe, to proceed at once 
to the main purpose of the volume, the history 
of the Creation, the Fall and the Redemption 
of man ; that in fact the earth itself may have 
existed through a vast number of ages, and 
may have gone through a vast number of revo- 
lutions, with which man in his history was not 
particularly concerned, or which did not bear 
on the main purpose of the volume — the record 
of the Fall and Recovery of a lost race. What 
was then almost conjecture in regard to the 
past history of the earth, has been verified. 
The prevailing opinions respecting its recent 
origin have been set aside. To all that was 
before regarded as grand in the conception of 
the earth, there is now added the truth that it 
has moved on its axis and in its orbit millions 
of ages ; that successive generations of animals 
have been formed, and have acted out the pur- 



Life at Tlrrcc- Score 19 

pose of their creation, and have disappeared 
forever; that vast changes have occurred in 
the waters and on the land, displacing each 
other, and then peopled again with new 
myriads of inhabitants appropriate to each, 
and then again to pass away; that immense 
deposits of minerals had been made by the 
slow progress of ages, fitted for the use of an 
order of beings that had not yet appeared; 
and that at last man, to whom all these 
changes had reference, and for whom all the 
previous arrangements were designed, appeared 
upon the earth, a being of higher order — the 
last in the series that was to occupy the globe. 
With this view of the past, what a different 
object is the earth now from what it was half 
a century ago! 

A large • part of the discoveries in science, 
the inventions in the arts, and the arrange- 
ments in the schemes of benevolence that are 
to affect future times, and whose bearings can 
now be scarcely appreciated, has been ori- 
ginated also in this period of the world. The 
power of steam was not indeed unknown be- 



20 Life at Three-Score. 

fore; but the great changes which it is des- 
tined to produce in the commerce of the world 
are the results of the inventions of this age. 
The railroad and the magnetic telegraph have 
been originated in these times. Every science 
has been pushed forward. Elementary books 
of instruction have been changed, and those 
which were adapted to the condition of the 
world sixty years ago would be useless now. 
If I were now to begin my education again, a 
large part of the books which I studied when 
young, would be valueless. I should, indeed, 
retain my Homer, my Virgil, and my Euclid ; 
but the books in which I sought instruction in 
chemistry, and geography, and natural philo- 
sophy, would no longer represent the science 
of the world, or convey correct views to my 
mind. The books which I then studied belong 
to another age, and though they will serve to 
mark the steps by which the advances of 
science have been made, they will never again 
be a proper exponent of the true state of know- 
ledge among mankind. I see wonders around 
me which have sprung up anew. Every river, 



Life at Three- Score. 21 

lake, and ocean is navigated by steam; an iron 
road is laid down everywhere, connecting all 
parts of a country together, along which are 
borne, by a power unapplied when I was young, 
the productions of agriculture, manufactures, 
and the arts, w r ith a rapidity and a precision 
of which no one then could have formed a con- 
ception. A mysterious and incomprehensible 
network, like spiders' w r ebs, is weaving itself 
over all lands, and making its way beneath 
deep waters, by which thought is transmitted 
simultaneously to millions of minds, and is dif- 
fused over distant lands regardless of mountains 
and of oceans. How different such a world 
from what it was sixty years ago ! 

In the same time there have sprung also into 
being arrangements, then unknown, no less 
adapted to affect the moral and religious con- 
dition of mankind. The great enterprises of 
Christian benevolence, yet to result in the en- 
tire conversion of the world to God, have been 
originated in that time. The Bible was indeed 
in men's hands, and the gospel was preached, 
and the power of the press was known, but the 



22 Life at Three-Score. 

serious thought had scarcely found its way into 
the minds of the friends of the Saviour of 
bringing the combined influence of these agen- 
cies on the widest scale possible to bear on the 
unconverted portions of the race. Within the 
period of which I am now speaking, this 
thought has taken a firm possession of the 
Christian mind and heart, and the great work 
of the world's conversion has been entered on 
in earnest. The Bible has been translated 
into nearly all the languages of the world; 
the strongholds of the earth have been occu- 
pied as missionary stations; millions of children 
are taught the great truths of Christianity from 
week to week in Sabbath-schools; and a Chris- 
tian literature is spreading its influence far 
and near over nominally Christian and Pagan 
lands. Whatever there is of power in these 
arrangements as bearing on the future, is the 
fruit of the spirit of this age ; and now, in refer- 
ence to science, to the arts, to the efforts of 
benevolence — to the world above, the world 
below, the world in the past, and the world 



Life at Three-Score. 23 

around us, I see a different — a larger — world 
than it was when I began to live. 

I augur much from this; I hope much in 
reference to the future. I see that the next 
age is likely to be more fruitful of great results 
than even this has been ; that it will be an age 
in which it will be more desirable to live than 
this has been. I look now on the beginning 
of things ; on the commencement of develop- 
ments which are to be far more grand and 
glorious than any which we have seen. John 
Robinson, the pastor of the Pilgrim Church at 
Leyden, in his farewell discourse to the depart- 
ing pilgrims, " charged them before God and 
his blessed angels to follow him no further than 
he had followed Christ; and if God should 
reveal any thing to them by any other instru- 
ment of his, to be as ready to receive it as ever 
they were to receive any truth by his ministry; 
for he was very confident the Lord had more 
truth and light yet to hreah forth out of his Holy 
Word."* The Bible, in his apprehension, was 
not exhausted. All its truths were not made 

* Cheever's Journal of the Pilgrims, p. 165. 



24 Life at Three-Score. 

known/ and there was much in reserve for 
future times. So I look on the world now. 
The powers of nature are not exhausted. Her 
secrets are not yet all explored. The improve- 
ments in the art of printing ; the applications 
of steam to commerce and the arts ; the dis- 
closures by the telescope, the microscope, and 
the blow-pipe ; the application of light in fixing 
the forms of things, and of the magnetic fluid 
in the transmission of thought, have not ex- 
hausted the secrets of nature. They have 
opened to us a world of wonders, and taught 
us to anticipate still greater inventions and dis- 
coveries, and not to be surprised at any thing 
which may seem now to surpass the compre- 
hension of the human mind. We have but 
just begun to wonder at nature — to feel that 
we know but little about it — that its disclosures 
are but just commenced. I look forward then 
to greater wonders in the future, and as I leave 
the world I shall see opening upon it new inven- 
tions, discoveries, and improvements, as mar- 
vellous in their nature as those which have 
marked the age in which I have lived, and as 



Life at Three-Score. 25 

far in advance of what we now see as those 
amazing discoveries are in advance of what 
preceding ages had done. You will not be sur- 
prised then at what I said, that I have now a 
higher idea of life as such — of the desirableness 
of living — than I had at the outset. 

So also in reference to the grand purpose of 
living — the preparation for a future world — it 
seems to me to be a greater object, a more 
desirable thing, to live in this world, than it 
did when I began life. The importance of 
this life as a season of probation steadily in- 
creases as we come in sight of the end, and see 
a vast eternity not far before us. The interests 
at stake grow larger and larger. Those things 
which ordinarily occupy the attention of man- 
kind dwindle almost to nothing. The earth, 
as it moves in its orbit from year to year, main- 
tains its distance of ninety-five millions of miles 
from the sun ; and the sun, except when seen 
through a hazy atmosphere, at its rising or its 
setting, seems at all times to be of the same 
magnitude — to human view an object always 
small as compared with our own world. But 



26 Life at Three- Score. 

suppose the earth should leave its orbit, and 
make its way in a direct line towards the sun. 
How soon would the sun seem to enlarge its 
dimensions ! How vast and bright would it 
become ! How soon would it fill the whole 
field of vision, and all on the earth dwindle to 
nothing ! So human life now appears to me. 
In earlier years eternity appears distant and 
small in importance. But at the period of life 
which I have now reached, it seems to me as 
if the earth had left the orbit of its annual 
movements, and was making a rapid and direct 
flight to the sun. The objects of eternity, 
towards which I am moving, rapidly enlarge 
themselves. They have become overpower-, 
ingly bright and grand. They fill the whole 
field of vision, and the earth, with all which is 
the common object of human ambition and 
pursuit, is vanishing away! 

The second thing which I have to say is, 
that I have found the world favourably dis- 
posed towards those who are entering on life ; 
favourably disposed towards the efforts which 



Life at Three-Score. 27 

may be made to promote its welfare. I found 
it willing to aid me when I was young; I have 
found it willing to favour my efforts thus far 
along the journey. I now regard it as kindly 
disposed towards young men; as willing to 
assist them in times of trouble and embarrass- 
ment; as willing to commit all its great interests 
into their hands. 

I know that this also is contrary to a very 
prevalent impression. I am aware that there 
is a feeling in the minds of many young men 
that the world is stern and unfriendly ; that it is 
disposed to "turn on them the cold shoulder;" 
that they who have filled the various profes- 
sions, and who must soon leave the world, look 
with an eye of jealousy, if not of envy, on those 
who are so soon to come into possession of 
whatever they have gained themselves — who 
will reap the reward which they would them- 
selves gladly reap, and fill the offices which 
they would even yet, though in advanced life, 
secure for themselves : in one word, that they 
give up the world reluctantly, and regard with 
iV teust and suspicion those who are preparing 



28 Life at Three- Score. 

to succeed them; that they look on young men 
rather as rivals than as vigorous allies, and 
commit the great affairs of the church and the 
world into their hands because they are com- 
pelled to do so, rather than because they have 
any confidence that in the hands of a succeed- 
ing generation the work will be well done. 

That there are such men I do not doubt. 
That there are those who are envious, and 
jealous, and selfish; that there are those who 
are indisposed to sympathize with young men 
in their efforts to get along in the world, who 
treat them with neglect, and who do nothing 
to aid them in their honourable exertions to 
start well in life, and who see them struggle 
along with difficulties without extending to 
them a helping hand, I cannot deny. There 
have been such men in every age ; and it is 
possible that any one entering on life may come 
in contact with such men. 

But I have not found the world so disposed 
towards me ; nor is this my experience in 
respect to those who have borne the " burden 
and heat of the day," and who have toiled for 



Life at Three-Score. 29 

objects which they have regarded as valuable. 
It was not my lot to find that the men w r ho 
were in possession of the honours of the world, 
or who occupied positions of trust and respon- 
sibility, were unwilling to leave them to other 
hands; nor has it been my experience that 
those w^ho had gone before me were disposed to 
throw obstacles in my way as I entered on life. 
I early formed the opinion, which I still enter- 
tain, that the world is favourably disposed 
towards young men, and that all which they 
who have filled the professions, and who have 
occupied positions of trust and responsibility, 
ask in regard to those who are to come after 
them, is that they shall evince traits of charac- 
ter which will make them worthy of confidence. 
When that is done, they are willing to commit 
all that for which they have toiled, and all 
which they regard as of so much value, into 
their hands. 

I began life with no wealth, and with no 
patronage from powerful friends. I was blessed 
with virtuous and industrious parents, and 
entered on my course with the advantage which 



3* 



30 Life at Three-Score. 

was to be derived from their counsels and 
example. I was dependent on my own efforts. 
I claim no special credit for this, or sympathy 
on account of it, for this is the way in which 
most men begin the world. 

I have always found the world kindly dis- 
posed towards any exertion which I was dis- 
posed to make to put myself forward in life. 
I do not remember that I ever found a man in 
my early years who was disposed to throw an 
obstacle in my way, or who would not have 
rejoiced in my success. My old pastor, my 
teachers, my neighbours, I always found willing 
to help me forward ; and what I found in them 
I have found also in the strangers whom I 
have met in the journey of life. When I en- 
larged my acquaintance beyond the limits of 
boyhood and youth, I did not encounter a cold 
and unfriendly world, or find that the men 
who had not before known me were disposed 
to impede my progress, or to throw embarrass- 
ments in my path. 

I have never lacked friends; never failed to 
find a friend when I had need of one. I know, 



Life at Three-Score, 31 

indeed, what it is for a young man to weep 
when he starts out alone to engage in the great 
struggles of life; but I know, also, what it is to 
have tears wiped away, and anxieties dispelled, 
and clouds dispersed, and the heart cheered, as 
a man meets with smiles, and good -wishes, and 
new-made friends, and as the voice of public 
sentiment encourages him to go forward. 

As an illustration of this, it may not be im- 
proper to refer to my coming among you, and 
to some of the incidents connected with my 
ministry here. 

I came here a young man, with but little 
experience, with no personal acquaintance with 
the manners and habits of a great city, and 
with no such reputation as to make success 
certain. I had never preached before the con- 
gregation, when I was called to be its pastor. 
I came at that early period of life, and with 
that want of experience, to succeed the most 
learned, able, and eloquent preacher in the 
Presbyterian Church ; a man occupying a posi- 
tion in this community which no other man 
occupied ; a man who had ministered here more 



32 Life at Three-Score. 

than twenty years; a man whose opinions 
secured a degree of respect which few men have 
ever been able to secure ; a man beloved and 
venerated by the congregation to which he had 
so long ministered. I came to take charge of 
one of the largest and most influential congre- 
gations in the land. I came when I was fully 
apprized that I must encounter from without 
a most decided and formidable opposition to 
the views which I had cherished, and to the 
doctrines which I had expressed. 

I found my venerable predecessor already, 
by anticipation, my friend. He defended my 
views. He endorsed my opinions. He exerted 
his great influence in the congregation in my 
favour, commending me, in every way, by his 
pen and his counsel, to the confidence and 
affection of the people to whom he had so long 
ministered. For six months, the time during 
which he lived after I became the pastor of the 
church, he was my friend, my counsellor, my 
adviser, my example; he did all that could be 
done by man to make my ministry here useful 
and happy. 



Life at Three- Score. 33 

I found a united people. During the six 
years of conflict which followed — years which 
are now so far in the past that they can be 
remembered by only a small portion of the 
congregation — notwithstanding all the efforts 
made from without to crush a young man, and 
to divide the congregation, it never swerved or 
hesitated. None were drawn away; none 
among us attempted to make a division. In 
every new phase of the now almost forgotten 
struggle before the Presbytery, the Synod, and 
the church at large, the entire congregation 
stood by me until the great result was reached 
which gave us peace. 

I found the church at large prepared to sus- 
tain me. In the opposition which sprang up 
around us, I committed the cause — submitting 
for six painful months, for the sake of order, 
and because I believed the constitution of the 
church required it — to what I then regarded, 
and still regard, as a most unrighteous decision, 
to the judgment of the church at large. The 
highest body known in our church — the General 
Assembly — the ultimate resort in determining 



34 Life at Three-Score. 

the views of our church, reversed what had 
been done in the inferior tribunals; gave its 
sanction to the views of doctrine for which we 
had struggled; and confirmed, by its high 
authority, the principles which my predecessor 
had maintained, and which I had endeavoured, 
as well as I was able, to defend. I have seen 
evidence in this, I think, certainly in my own 
case, that the world is kindly disposed towards 
young men, and that in times of conflict and 
struggle, when a man needs a friend, he will 
find one. 

And I have found, also, that the world is not 
unwilling to listen to the truth; and, unless 
my views greatly change in the little time that 
remains to me of life, I shall leave it with the 
firm conviction that truth may be made to 
commend itself to men so as to secure the 
assent of the understanding and the heart. I 
know the natural opposition of the human 
heart to the gospel, and I am not ignorant that 
men, under the influence of sinful passions 
and pursuits, turn away from that truth which 
would lead them to God. But I have found 



Life at Three-Score. 35 

in man that which, under God ; may be relied 
on in the attempt to convince the world of 
truth. I have aimed, in my ministry — not 
now a short one — to declare the whole counsel 
of God. I have embraced the Trinitarian sys- 
tem of religion, and the Calvinistic system, and 
have not concealed the features of these sys- 
tems from the world. I have endeavoured to 
set forth the doctrines of human depravity, and 
of the atonement, and of the necessity of re- 
generation by the Holy Ghost. I have de- 
fended the doctrine of decrees, of election, of 
justification by faith, and of future retribution. 
I have endeavoured to show to men that they 
can be saved by no merit of their own, and 
that their own works will avail them nothing 
in the matter of justification before God. I 
have spoken, as I was able, against all forms 
of vice, against all oppression and wrong, 
against sinful amusements; I have spoken 
freely of the theatre, and the gay assembly, 
and of the influence of the world on the mem- 
bers of the church. That I may have never 
given offence, is more than a man could have 



36 Life at Tliree-Score. 

a right to hope ; nor do I mean to say that I 
have always carried the hearts of my hearers 
with me. But I have never doubted that I 
could carry with me in the cause of truth, if 
properly presented* the understandings and the 
consciences of my hearers ; nor do I now doubt 
that the great doctrines of religion may be so 
presented to mankind as to secure ultimately 
a universal conviction of their truth, and so as 
to bring all hearts under their control. I am 
hopeful, therefore, as to the result of my obser- 
vation and experience, in regard to the power 
of the truth, and I expect to leave the world 
with the full conviction that it may be, and 
that it yet will be, so presented to the mind of 
man as to secure a universal assent to its claims; 
so that all men shall receive it, and retain it, 
with as much firmness as its comparatively few 
friends do now. 

In the thied place, I have seen the value of 
temperance. I began life when the use of in- 
toxicating drinks prevailed generally in our 
country. I was never intemperate ; but I was 



Life at Three-Score, 37 

exposed to the temptations to which those who 
enter on life when such habits prevail, are ex- 
posed, and I have seen many of the companions 
of my early years sink to the grave as the 
result of habits formed under those customs. 

The great work of the temperance reforma- 
tion, in this country, commenced about the 
time that I entered on my ministry. I early 
embraced, in the most rigid form, personally, 
and with respect to my preaching, the great 
principle of the temperance reformation — that 
of entire abstinence from all intoxicating 
beverages. I have preached, in former years, 
much on the subject; perhaps, as some may 
have thought, giving to it a disproportionate 
importance; and, personally, I have adhered 
rigidly to the strict principles which I early 
adopted. 

I am now at a time of life favourable, I 
think, for forming a candid opinion of the 
principles which I have held, and I have no 
motive for any bias in regard to the matter. 
After more than thirty years have passed away 
in practising on those principles, and after 



38 Life at Three- Score. 

having made so many efforts in my ministry to 
persuade my fellow-men, and especially the 
young, to embrace them, I think I am in a 
favourable situation for expressing an opinion 
as to their correctness and value. 

I naturally now look at the subject person- 
ally, and with reference to my public ministry. 

I have mentioned that I adopted the most 
rigid views on the subject. I embraced the 
principle of entire abstinence from all that can 
intoxicate. I have adhered to that principle. 
For thirty years I have rigidly abstained from 
even wine, except as prescribed by a physician, 
and then most rarely. I have never kept it in 
my family ; I have never provided it for my 
friends ; I have declined it when it has been 
placed before me, and when I have been present 
where others, even clergymen, have indulged 
in its use. I have never concealed my senti- ■ 
ments on the subject; and in thus abstaining, 
in all the circles where I have been, whether 
of religious men, or worldly men, at home, at 
sea, abroad, I have seen only a marked respect 
for my sentiments. However much I may 



Life at Three- Score, 39 

have differed in practice from those with whom 
I have been, I have never known one thing 
done or said to give me pain, nor have I found 
that men, whatever might be their own prac- 
tice, have been any the less disposed to show 
me respect on account of my views. I now 
approve the course, and if I were to live my 
life over again, I see nothing in this matter 
which I would wish to change. I am per- 
suaded that the principle has all the import- 
ance which I have ever attached to it. I have 
lost nothing by it; I have gained much; 

I have lost nothing on the score of health ; 
I have gained much. I have had a clearer 
intellect than I should otherwise ha\ 7 e had; I 
have had more bodily vigour; I have had a 
calmer mind, and I have had more cheerful 
spirits. I have had more ability to labour, 
and I have had a more uniform inclination to 
labour. 

I have lost nothing in public estimation. I 
have no reason to believe that it has ever 
occurred that any one has been inclined to 
regard or treat me with less respect and confi- 



40 Life at Three-Score, 

dence because of the principles which I have 
cherished on this subject, and which I have 
endeavoured to carry out in my daily life. No 
one has, to my knowledge, ever questioned the 
propriety of my course, in this respect ; no one 
has ever suggested that it was inconsistent with 
my profession as a Christian man, or with my 
duty as a minister of the gospel. 

I have lost nothing on the score of useful- 
ness. In looking back now over my course, I 
cannot believe that I should have been more 
useful to any class of men by adopting a differ- 
ent course ; I am certain that I should have 
been less useful to many — that many to whom 
I would be glad to be useful, would have been 
pained if I had pursued a different course, and 
would have made it an objection against the 
gospel which I could not readily have met. 

I have lost nothing on the score of happi- 
ness. I am certain that I should have added 
nothing to the real happiness of my life if I 
had followed the usages which I found in so- 
ciety in early life, or if I had complied w r ith 
the customs on this subject which formerly 



Life at T I tree- Score. 41 

prevailed, and which, to some extent, still pre- 
vail, among professing Christians and ministers 
of the gospel. I do not see now — I cannot 
see — that a different course, in . this respect, 
would have made me a more happy man. 

And I cannot forget that by this course of 
life, whatever may have occurred in other 
respects, I have escaped dangers to which I 
should have been exposed, and which might 
have proved my ruin. I have not lived so 
long upon the earth without seeing painful 
evidence that no profession, not even the min- 
istry of the gospel, of itself secures a man from 
the dangers of intemperance; and I have seen 
most sad and humiliating illustrations of the 
effect of indulging in intoxicating drinks even 
among ministers of the gospel ; and, whatever 
else may have occurred in my life, it is a source 
of grateful reflection to me now that I have 
not fallen as they have done; that I have been 
permitted to feel the confident assurance that 
as long as I adhered to this fixed purpose I 
was absolutely certain that one of the direst 
curses that can come upon men would never 

4* 



42 Life at Three- Score. 

come upon me, that of disgracing my profes- 
sion, and crushing the hearts of my friends, and 
covering my own name with infamy, by intem- 
perance. 

I adhere now, therefore, most firmly to the 
resolution which I adopted early in my life, 
and I intend, by the grace of God, to maintain 
it steadfastly till my death. I see no reason 
for changing it now; I am certain that I shall 
see no reason hereafter for doing it. I can 
conceive of nothing that could be gained by 
my departing from it; and I do not intend to 
depart from it. My principles on this point 
are well understood by all who know me, and 
I intend that they shall always be thus under- 
stood. I commend the same rule to others, 
especially to those who are in the morning of 
life, as a safe and a wise rule of life. It can 
injure no one to abstain wholly from that 
which is not needful for vigour of mind or 
body; it would certainly save from that which 
is at all times most dangerous, and which may 
be ruinous to the body and to the soul. It 
would be much for any man to secure at the 



Life at Three- Score. 43 

beginning of life, to be able to make it abso- 
lutely certain that, whatever of calamity, trou- 
ble, misfortune, or change might occur, one 
thing was fixed,— that he would never die a 
drunkard. The rule which I have adopted for 
myself, and which I have acted on, would 
make this absolutely certain in any case. 

I look with equal satisfaction and approba- 
tion over my public efforts in the cause of 
temperance. It was my lot to begin my minis- 
try in a region of country where the usual 
customs on this subject prevailed, and where 
alcoholic drinks were extensively manufactured 
and sold. Within the limits of my pastoral 
charge, embracing an extent not far from ten 
miles in diameter, there were nineteen places 
where the article was manufactured, and twenty 
where it was sold. I considered it my duty 
early to call the attention of my people to the 
subject. I presented my views, in successive 
discourses, plainly and earnestly. I appealed 
to their reason, to their conscience, to their re- 
ligion. I showed what I understood to be the 
doctrine of the Bible on the subject, and I 



44 Life at Three- Score. 

stated the influence of the practice on the hap- 
piness of families, and on the peace, the order, 
and the morals of the community, and its in- 
fluence in producing pauperism, wretchedness, 
crime, and death. The appeal was not in vain. 
I found early in my ministry, even where 
habits had been long established, where pro- 
perty was involved, and where sacrifices would 
be required on their part in adopting my views, 
that men would listen to the voice of reason 
and the voice of God. I had the happiness to 
know that, in eighteen out of the twenty places 
where intoxicating drinks were sold, the traffic 
was soon abandoned ; and I saw, in seventeen 
out of nineteen of those places where the poison 
was manufactured, the fires go out to be re- 
kindled no more. I had a proof thus early in 
my ministry, which has been of great value to 
me since, of the fact that truth may be pre- 
sented to the minds of men so as to secure 
their approbation even when great pecuniary 
sacrifices must be made, and when it would 
lead to important changes in the customs and 
habits of society. 



Life at Three- Score. 45 

I have maintained publicly the same princi- 
ples since. I have defended the cause of tem- 
perance in every way in my power. I have 
advocated the principle of total abstinence from 
all that can intoxicate ; I have vindicated the 
use of "the pledge;" I have argued against 
those laws which contemplate the licensing of 
that which is admitted to be an evil; I have 
exhorted the church to set an example of total 
abstinence ; I have endeavoured to show that 
the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits for 
drinking-purposes can be reconciled neither 
with the principles of sound morality nor reli- 
gion ; I have defended the propriety of a law 
which would wholly prohibit the sale of alco- 
holic drinks except for purposes of medicine 
and manufactures. I have endeavoured to 
show you, that as you would not suffer a pow- 
der-manufactory to be set up in Washington 
Square; as you would not allow a cargo of 
damaged hides to be landed at your wharves ; 
as you would not permit a vessel from an in- 
fected region to come into port, so the true and 
the safe principle would be to exclude and pro- 



46 Life at Threescore. 

hi bit forever that which spreads woe, poverty, 
disease, crime, pollution, and death : — that a 
community is bound to protect itself, and that 
no class of men, for private gain, can have a 
right to scatter death and ruin around the 
land. 

The cause of temperance, as a cause, has met 
with a Waterloo defeat. The advocates of the 
use of intoxicating . liquors have triumphed. 
The barriers against intemperance have been 
broken down. The temperance-societies have 
been disbanded. The restraints on the manu- 
facture and sale of that which poisons and ruins 
have been withdrawn. The utmost liberty in 
the manufacture and sale has been conceded 
by the laws; and the voice of persuasion, of 
entreaty, and of warning has almost died away. 
The community has determined that there 
shall be no restraint, and that all men may 
manufacture, and sell, and drink as they 
please. The floodgates are thrown wide open, 
and the experiment is to be again made, on the 
largest scale, to determine what will be the 
effect of unlimited indulgence in intoxicating 



Life at Three- Score. 47 

drinks. The community has expressed its 
willingness to tax itself to support paupers, 
ninety-nine out of every hundred of whom are 
made paupers by the direct or indirect influence 
of intoxication ; to pay the expenses of building 
prisons, and conducting the business of courts, 
and supporting convicts for burglary, arson, 
brawls, and manslaughter, nine cases out of 
every ten of which are produced by intemper- 
ance, — to bear this enormous burden because 
there is a small portion of the community 
which demands the privilege of supporting 
itself by scattering wretchedness and crime 
over the land ; by breaking the hearts of wives, 
mothers, and sisters ; and by consigning hus- 
bands, fathers, and sons to the wretched grave 
of the drunkard. Meantime the press is silent. 
The pulpit is dumb. The voice of warning 
and entreaty has died away. A most fearful 
experiment is made in the land; an experiment 
whose result God alone can see. 

I adhere now, and shall till I die, to the 
principles on this subject wliicli I have pub- 
licly advocated, and I believe that they will 



48 Life at Three- Score. 

ultimately be found to be true principles, and 
that the world will adopt them. I believe 
that the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits 
for the purpose of a beverage is an immoral 
employment, and a ruinous waste of capital; 
that the only safe and correct principle for an 
individual, if he would promote his health, his 
prosperity, his reputation, his usefulness here, 
and his salvation in the world to come, is that 
of total abstinence ; that the practice of licens- 
ing an evil in any form and for any purposes — 
of throwing the protection of the law, for a 
miserable revenue, over that which spreads 
woe, and poverty, and crime in the land — is as 
erroneous in principle as it is pernicious in its 
consequences; and that the true principle in 
the matter is that of entire prohibition of that 
which is "evil, and only evil, and evil con- 
tinually." I believe that a community would 
be better and happier, more prosperous in 
worldly matters, and more religious towards 
God, where this should be done; and that in 
doing this, no just principle in legislation 



Life at Three- Score. 49 

would be violated. I expect to die holding 
that opinion. 

In the fourth place, I have seen the value 
of industry ; and as I owe to this, under God, 
whatever success I have obtained, it seems to 
me not improper to speak of it here, and to 
recommend the habit to those who are just 
entering on life. 

I had nothing else to depend on but this. 
I had no capital when I began life ; I had no 
powerful patronage to help me; I had no 
natural endowments, as I believe that no man 
has, that could supply the place of industry; 
and it is not improper here to say that all that 
I have been able to do in this world has been 
the result of habits of industry which began 
early in life ; which were commended to me by 
the example of a venerated father; and which 
have been, and are, an abiding source of enjoy- 
ment. 

And here — and it was with a view to this 
in part that I have introduced this subject at 
all- — it seems to me to be proper to allude to 



50 Life at Three-Score. 

what I have never before referred to in the 
pulpit, — the use which I have made of the 
press. It may have appeared strange that a 
man with such a pastoral charge as I have had, 
and under such responsibilities as have been 
on me, — a salaried man, employed to do a spe- 
cific work, and that not the work of book- 
making, — should have felt himself at liberty to 
devote so much time as I have done to an em- 
ployment that seems to be so connected with a 
private end, and so remote from the duties of 
a pastor. I admit that the point is one which 
demands some explanation, and though I have 
never learned that any complaint has been 
made in any quarter on the subject, yet it 
seems proper that once for all — and no better 
time to do it is likely to occur — I should state 
why it has been done. 

Dr. Doddridge, in reference to his own work, 
the " Paraphrase on the New Testament," — a 
work which, in my judgment, better expresses 
the true sense of the New Testament, and is a 
more finished and elegant commentary on 
that portion of the Bible than any other in 



Life at Three-Score. 51 

tlie English language, — said that its being 
written at all was owing to the difference 
between rising at five and at seven o'clock in 
the morning. A remark similar to this will 
explain all that I have done. Whatever I 
have accomplished in the way of commentary 
on the Scriptures is to be traced to the fact of 
rising at four in the morning, and to the time 
thus secured which I thought might properly 
be employed in a work not immediately con- 
nected with my pastoral labours. That habit I 
have* pursued now for many years ; rather, as 
far as my conscience advises me on the sub- 
ject, because I loved the work itself, than 
from any idea of gain or of reputation, or, 
indeed, from any definite plan as to the work 
itself. 

And here, as my publications on the Scrip- 
tures have had a circulation which I never 
anticipated, and which I have always found 
it difficult to account for, it may be proper to 
state, in few words, the manner in which my 
attention was first directed to it, and the prin- 
ciples on which the work has been conducted, 



52 Life at Three-Score. 

until a result has been reached which so as- 
tonishes me, and which overwhelms me now 
with the responsibility of what I have done. 

My attention was first directed to the sub- 
ject by what seemed to me to be a want in 
Sabbath-schools, the want of a plain and sim- 
ple commentary on the Gospels, which could 
be put into the hands of teachers, and which 
would furnish an easy explanation of the 
meaning of the sacred writers. I began the 
work, and prepared brief notes on a portion 
of the Gospel of Matthew, when I incidentally 
learned that the Kev. James W. Alexander, 
D.D., then of Trenton, now of New York, was 
engaged in preparing a similar work. Not 
deeming it desirable that two books of the 
same kind should be prepared, I wrote to him 
on the subject. He replied that he had been 
employed by the American Sunday-School 
Union to prepare such a work; that he had 
made about the same amount of manuscript 
preparation which I had done; that he re- 
garded it as undesirable that two works of 
the same character should be issued; that 



Life at Three-Score, 53 

his health was delicate, and that he would 
gladly relinquish the undertaking. He aban- 
doned it, as I have always felt, with a gene- 
rous spirit, manifesting at that early time of 
life, alike in the act itself and in his letter to 
me on the subject, the same high trait of cha- 
racter as a Christian gentleman which has 
always so eminently distinguished him. I 
have prosecuted the work until a result has 
been reached which I by no means contem- 
plated at the outset. 

All my commentaries on the Scriptures 
have been written before nine o'clock in the 
morning. At the very beginning, now more 
than thirty years ago, I adopted a resolution 
to stop writing on these Notes when the clock 
struck nine. This resolution I have invaria- 
bly adhered to, not unfrequently finishing my 
morning task in the midst of a paragraph, and 
sometimes even in the midst of a sentence. 

In preparing so many books for the public, 
while under obligation to perform the duties 
of a pastor in a large congregation, seemingly 
abstracting time for a private end which might 



5* 



54 Life at Three- Scare. 

have been devoted directly to my duties as a 
Christian minister, I have justified my course 
to my mind by two considerations : — 

One was, that I thought that no one could rea- 
sonably complain, if I took that time for what 
seemed to be a side-work before men usually 
entered on the duties of the day, and that if 
I devoted the time after nine in the morning 
to the work of preparation for the pulpit, and 
to my pastoral labours, I should devote as much 
each day to my professional duties as other 
men ordinarily do to the callings of life ; and, 

The other was, that I could in no way bet- 
ter prepare myself for my public ministerial 
labours, than by devoting a portion of each 
morning to the careful study of the word of 
God — the volume which it has been the duty 
of my life to explain and defend. The best 
method of studying any subject is by writing 
on it ; and, apart from all idea of publication, 
and even supposing that accumulated manu- 
scripts were committed to the flames, I know 
now of no way in which a minister of the 
gospel could better prepare himself for his 



Life at Three-Score. 55 

public ministrations, than by spending two 
hours each morning in a careful and critical 
study of the Bible. I know of no part of my 
studies from which I have derived more real 
aid in my public ministrations, than from the 
habit thus early formed, and so long perse- 
vered in, of beginning each day with the 
study of the word of God. At the same 
time, it is not improper fc$> refer here to the 
happiness which I have found in these studies. 
In the recollection now of the past portions 
of my life, I refer to these morning hours — to 
the stillness and quiet of my room in this 
house of God when I have been permitted to 
"prevent the dawning of the morning" in the 
study of the Bible, while the inhabitants of 
this great city were slumbering round about 
me, and before the cares of the day and its 
direct responsibilities came on me — to the 
hours which I have thus spent in a close 
contemplation of divine truth, endeavouring 
to understand its import, to remove the diffi- 
culties that might pertain to it, and to ascer- 
tain its practical bearing on the Christian 



56 Life at Three- Score. 

life, — I refer, I say, to these scenes as among 
the happiest portions of my life. If I have 
had any true communion with God in my life ; 
if I have made any progress in Christian 
piety; if I am, in any respect, a better man, 
and a more confirmed Christian, than I was 
when I entered the ministry ; if I have made 
any progress in my preparation for that world 
on which I must, at no distant period, enter ; 
and if I have been enabled to do you any 
good in explaining to you the word of God, 
it has been closely connected with those calm 
and quiet scenes when I felt that I was alone 
with God, and when my mind was thus 
brought into close contact with those truths 
which the Holy Ghost has inspired. I look 
back to those periods of my life with gratitude 
to God ; and I could not do a better thing in 
reference to my younger brethren in the mi- 
nistry, than to commend this habit to them as 
one closely connected with their own personal 
piety, and their usefulness in the world. 

Manuscripts, when a man writes every day, 
even though he writes but little, accumulate. 



Life at Three-Score. 57 

Dr. Johnson was once asked how it was that 
the Christian Fathers, and the men of other 
times, could find leisure to fill so many folios 
with the productions of their pens. " Nothing 
is easier/' said he ; and he at once began a cal- 
culation to show what would be the effect in 
the ordinary term of a man's life if he wrote 
only one octavo page in a day ; and the ques- 
tion was solved. The result in thirty or forty 
years would account for all that Jerome, or 
Chrysostom, or Augustine, that Luther, Cal- 
vin, or Baxter, have done. In this manner 
manuscripts accumulated on my hands until I 
have been surprised to find that by this slow 
and steady process I have been enabled to 
prepare eleven volumes of commentary on 
the New Testament, and five on portions of 
the Old Testament, and that the aggregate 
number of volumes of commentary on the 
New Testament which I have thus sent abroad, 
is more than four hundred thousand in our 
own country, and I suppose a larger number 
abroad. 

I cannot but feel now most deeply the re- 



58 Life at Three-Score. 

sponsibility of the work which I have done, 
and which is so foreign to any purpose or ex- 
pectation of my early years. I cannot now 
recall those books. I cannot control any im- 
pression which they may make. It affects 
me also deeply to reflect that the sentiments 
in those books are most likely to come in 
contact with minds through which they will 
exert an influence when I am dead, — the 
minds of- the young. And yet I would not 
recall them if I could. With all my con- 
sciousness of their imperfection, and with my 
firm expectation that some man will yet pre- 
pare a commentary on the New Testament 
far better fitted to accomplish the end which 
I have sought than my own writings are, and 
with the feeling that, at my time of life, I 
cannot hope to revise them, and to make them 
conformable to what I would desire them to 
be, I still believe that they contain the sys- 
tem of eternal truth ; that they defend what 
is right ; that their influence will be to illus- 
trate, in some measure, a great system of doc- 
trines, which is closely connected w 7 ith the 



Life at Three-Score. 59 

salvation of men; and that, with all their 
imperfections, they give utterance to just sen- 
timents on the nature of true piety, and the 
duties of practical religion. They will dis- 
appear from the world as other books have 
done, and as their author will, — alike forgotten. 
Yet the truths which thev are designed to 
illustrate will live on to the end of time ; 
truths, I hope, to be better illustrated, and 
more earnestly enforced, by those who are to 
come after us. 

I shall depart from the world, when my 
allotted time comes, with an impression con- 
stantly increasing, of the value of the press, 
and especially of its value as an auxiliary in 
spreading abroad the truths of the gospel of 
Christ. Its importance as an aid in diffusing 
truth is not yet fully known, and is not appre- 
ciated as it should be, even by ministers of 
religion. Without departing in any manner 
from the proper work of the ministry ; with- 
out leading them in any way to neglect the 
preaching of the gospel, or their proper pas- 
toral duties; and with no purpose on their 



60 Life at Three- Score. 

part to make it a source of fame or emolu- 
ment, it seems to me now that much may be 
expected by the church at large from the 
large body of educated men in the ministry, 
who, by their training, their talents, and their 
position, have so much power to influence the 
minds of men through the press. 

In the fifth place, I have seen the value of 
religion, and have become more and more 
convinced, as I have passed along on the jour- 
ney of life, that the Bible is a revelation from 
God. 

I began life a skeptic in religion, and I early 
fortified and poisoned my mind by reading all 
the books to which I could find access, that 
were adapted to foster and sustain my native 
skepticism. Up to the age of nineteen, though 
outwardly moral, and though, in the main, 
respectful in my treatment of religion, I had 
no belief in the Bible as a revelation from 
God, nor was I willing to be convinced that 
it is such a revelation. 

Circumstances which need not now be ad- 



Life at Three- Score. 61 

verted to, but which related rather to the 
choice of a profession than to any question 
about the truth of religion, led me to some 
reflection on the general subject of the future, 
and to the course which I should pursue in the 
world. I should have shrunk at that time 
from its being understood that I read the 
Bible, and I should equally have avoided any 
book that would be understood by my asso- 
ciates to suggest the thought that I was a 
serious inquirer in regard to my salvation. 
Among them, however, I was not ashamed to 
be seen reading a book which was in all our 
hands, — the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, then in 
a course of publication. One of the numbers 
of that work had an article by Dr. Chalmers, 
entitled Christianity. I read it. The argu- 
ment to me was new. It fixed my attention. 
It commanded my assent. It convinced me, 
intellectually, of the divine origin of the Chris- 
tian religion. At this day, that article seems 
to me to be among the most able of the pro- 
ductions of that great man, and to be the best 



62 Life at Three- Score. 

defence of the truth of Christianity which has 
been published. 

But with this intellectual conviction I 
paused. I formed a purpose on the subject 
of religion which I then intended should regu- 
late my future course in this world. It was 
to lead henceforward a strictly moral life; to 
say nothing against religion ; not to be found 
on any occasion among its opposers ; but to 
yield to its claims no farther. I resolved, to 
express my purpose at that time in one word, 
to frame my life, in this respect, on what I 
understood to be the character and views of 
Dr. Franklin. 

A year afterwards, a revival of religion com- 
menced in the college of which I was then a 
member, and affected particularly the class 
with which I was connected. I resolved to 
carry out at this time, and in reference to 
the existing religious movement, the resolution 
which I had previously formed. I determined 
to say nothing against the revival, but to stand 
aloof from it, and in no respect to yield to its 
influence. I supposed that I was sufficiently 



Life at Three-Score. 63 

guarded in reference to this, and that no appeal 
which could be made to me would affect me. 
A classmate, recently converted, stated to me 
in simple words, and with no appeal to me per- 
sonally, his own feelings on the subject of reli- 
gion, described the change which had occurred' 
in his mind, and left me. His words went to 
my heart ; led me to reflect on my own condi- 
tion, and were the means, under God, of that 
great change which has so materially affected 
all my plans in this life, and which I antici- 
pate and hope will affect my condition forever. 
I advert to this here, not only because it 
was an important event in my own life, but 
because it has taught me some great truths in 
regard to religion. My own experience thus 
referred to has shown me that conversion from 
infidelity to Christianity, so as to secure an 
intellectual assent to it as a system, is not 
necessarily conversion to true religion ; that a 
man may be convinced of the truth of the 
Bible, and pause there, making no progress 
ever afterwards ; that much more than such a 
conviction is necessary to save the soul ; and 



64 Life at Three-Score. 

that they who yield the understanding to God 
and to his truth, and withhold the heart from 
the claims of the gospel, as I had done, are not 
safe in regard to another world. Had I paused 
there, as I purposed to do, my whole course in 
this world would have been different; my ever- 
lasting condition in another world, I cannot 
but believe, would have been essentially unlike 
what I trust now that it will be. I have 
always, therefore, looked with deep interest and 
concern on that class of men, so numerous and 
so respectable, who yield an intellectual assent 
to the Christian religion, and who go no far- 
ther; who admit that the Bible is from God, 
but who form a purpose, secret or avowed, that 
it shall have no ascendency over the heart. 
My own experience has taught me that their 
feet stand on slippery rocks; and, urged by that 
experience, and by the recollection of my own 
danger, it has been one great aim of my minis- 
try to lead that class of men to a better foun- 
dation of hope. 

This change in my views and feelings oc- 
curred nearly forty years ago. It led to an 



Life at Three-Score. 65 

entire change in my plans of life, and in my 
choice of a profession. The time of my con- 
version to Christ, if I was truly converted, and 
of my change in my plans of life, was simulta- 
neous. I had intended to enter the legal pro- 
fession, and had looked forward to it with the 
ardour of an ambitious mind, nor have I ever 
ceased to feel a deep personal interest in it. 
As I view the matter now, it would be to me 
among the most attractive callings of life, and 
would be next in my choice to the one in 
which I have spent my days. But the ques- 
tion, in my case, between the law and the 
ministry, seemed to me to be one involving no 
doubt and admitting of no hesitation. 

I have never had occasion to regret the 
change. To that change alike in regard to 
my feelings, and to my purposes in life, I now 
look back with more satisfaction than to any 
other change which has occurred, or to any 
other purpose which I have formed. If I were 
to live my life over again, I should desire that 
the same change should occur again, as most 
closely identified with my happiness and my 

6* 



66 Life at Three- Score. 

usefulness in this world, and with my hopes in 
the future life. 

I am now more firmly, and I trust more in- 
telligently, impressed with the truth of Chris- 
tianity, and with the belief that the Bible is 
a revelation from God, than I was when that 
change occurred. That I saw difficulties in the 
scheme of Christianity, and in the Bible, then ; 
that I have seen them since ; that I see them 
now, I do not deny; nor do I expect to reach 
a position in this world where objections could 
not be suggested on the whole subject of reli- 
gion which I should not be able to solve. But 
I have spent more than thirty years in a close 
study of the Sacred Scriptures, and no small 
part of my inquiries has had reference to the 
difficulties which w T ere suggested to my mind 
by my early skepticism, and to those which to 
a mind naturally inclined to unbelief have been 
suggested since. I do not mean to say that all 
those difficulties have been removed. But I 
have found that, on a close examination, not a 
few of those which at first perplexed me have 
silently disappeared ; that a large part of those 



Life at Three- Score, 07 

which have been since suggested have vanished 
also ; and that, in the mean time, the evidences 
of the truth of the Bible have, in my appre- 
hension, become stronger and stronger. Thus 
a large part of the difficulties which once per- 
plexed me have vanished entirely; a portion 
of them have taken their place by the side of 
undisputed facts actually existing in the world, 
in reference to which there are the same diffi- 
cult questions to be answered as in regard to 
the difficulties in the Bible, and which do not 
pertain, therefore, peculiarly to revelation, and 
about which, as a believer in revelation, I give 
myself no special perplexity or trouble. My 
experience in the matter has led me to hope 
and believe that a longer and more patient 
study would in a similar manner remove all 
the difficulties which I now see in the Christian 
system, and make what now appears to be in- 
consistent harmonious, and what is now dark 
clear. I come, therefore, in this respect, with 
the language of encouragement to those who 
are now just entering on their Christian way, 
and who find their minds poisoned by skep- 



68 Life at Three-Score. 

ticism, and their course impeded by difficulties. 
Time, patience, study, reflection, prayer, sug- 
gestions from within and from without, accom- 
panied by the influences of the Divine Spirit, 
will remove most of those difficulties, and will 
leave at last only those which belong, not pe- 
culiarly to the Bible, but to the mysterious 
order of things around us; to those which lie 
wholly beyond the reach of our present powers, 
and which must be left for solution to an eter- 
nal world. It should never be forgotten that 
these great subjects are to engross our thoughts 
forever, and that it was needful that the uni- 
verse should be so made as to give eternal occu- 
pation to the intellect and the heart. We are 
in the very infancy of our being now, and it 
would make the heaven before us a blank if 
there were no subjects demanding our thoughts, 
and fitted to give occupation to mind, which 
we could not grasp and explain now. I have 
never intended to turn away from any difficulty 
which has come in my path on the subject of 
religion; I have never designed to evade an 
objection, come from what quarter it might; I 



Life at Three-Score. 69 

have never refused as a personal matter to 
listen to any suggestion which would seem to 
militate against the truth of religion, and to 
examine it. I can have no object in being de- 
ceived, or in deceiving others ; I have as much 
personal interest as any other man can have in 
the question whether Christianity is true or 
false. I say now, therefore, that I am more 
firmly and more intelligently convinced of the 
truth of the Bible than I was at twenty-one 
years of age; that the difficulties which I then 
saw have been silently and gradually melting 
away; and that I now perceive scarcely any 
which I do not see existing with equal force 
in the analogy of nature, or which are not such 
as lie beyond the powers of man as yet de- 
veloped, and which properly pertain to another 
world. 

The language of the late Professor Stuart, 
of Andover, well describes my own experience 
on this subject : — " In the early part of my 
Biblical studies, some thirty to thirty-five 
years ago," says he, " when I first began the 
critical investigation of the Scriptures, doubts 



70 Life at Three-Score. 

and difficulties started up on every side, like 
the armed men whom Cadmus is fabled to 
have raised up. Time, patience, continued 
study, a better acquaintance with the original 
scriptural languages, and the countries where 
the sacred books were written, have scattered 
to the winds nearly all those doubts. I meet, 
indeed," says he, " with difficulties still, which 
I cannot solve at once ; with some where even 
repeated efforts have not solved them. But I 
quiet myself by calling to mind that hosts of 
other difficulties, once apparently to me as 
formidable as these, have been removed, and 
have disappeared from the circle of my trou- 
bled vision. Why may I not hope, then, as 
to the difficulties that remain?"* 

I now declare to you solemnly, in this public 
manner, that I have no hope of the immor- 
tality of the soul, or of future happiness, ex- 
cept that which is found in the gospel of 
Christ. I have seen no evidence — I now see 
none — of the immortality of the soul as de- 
rived from human reasoning which would be 

* Canon of the Old Testament, p. 18. 



Life at Three- Score. 71 

satisfactory to my mind ; and my belief that 
the soul will exist forever is founded on the 
fact that " life and immortality are brought to 
light through the gospel." The reasoning of 
Plato on the subject; in the Pl^do, has done 
nothing to convince me on that point; nor 
have I met with any reasoning, apart from 
the statements of the Bible, which would con- 
vince me, or which would give support and 
consolation to my anxious mind when I think 
on this great subject. And, in the same man- 
ner, I declare to you that I have no hope of 
heaven except that which is derived from 
what the Saviour has done for lost sinners, — a 
hope founded solely on his atonement; his 
merit; his intercession. I can adopt now^, as 
expressing the whole of my belief and my 
hope, the sentiment which my venerable pre- 
ceptor, Dr. Alexander, is understood to have 
expressed in his last moments, as constituting 
the " whole of his theology :" — " This is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
and though I fear that in death I 



72 Life at Three-Score. 

should be compelled, much more than he 
needed to do, to mingle with this expression 
of my faith the language which our great 
statesman* is said to have uttered in his 
dying moments, "Lord, I believe, help thou 
mine unbelief," yet still this is my faith, and 
this is my hope. I have no other. I desire 
no other. 

I have thus submitted to you what I wished 
to express on an occasion that is to me of so 
much interest. I could turn the table — I 
could give you the obverse of this — I could 
recount errors and short-comings and imper- 
fections in my life, of which I am now deeply 
conscious, and which will be to me a source of 
regret to the end of my days ; but these do 
not pertain to an occasion like this. They 
belong to the "closet," — the place where a 
man is alone with God, and where he seeks 
for pardon through the blood of the atonement. 

I enter now on what I must regard as the 
last stage of my existence on earth. I have 

* Daniel Webster. 



Life at Three-Score. 73 

reached the summit of life. I cannot expect 
or hope to rise higher. I have come to the 
top of the hill, and I have found there, as 
one sometimes does when he ascends a moun- 
tain, a little spot which seems to me to be 
level ground — a small area of table-land — a 
plateau — that spreads out a little distance 
around me. If I am permitted to walk for a 
few years on that plateau — that table-land — 
that level spot — it is all that I can now hope 
for. I can look for no greater degree of vigour 
of body or of mind ; for no greater ability to 
labour. That little spot of level ground which 
I seem to have found on the summit, spreads 
out before me with much that is inviting. I 
cannot deny that I would, on many accounts, 
love to linger there, and extend my walk 
further than I can reasonably hope that I 
shall be permitted to do. But I desire not to 
forget that though this little spot seems to me 
to be level, yet if I continue to walk over it 
for a little time I must find it soon begin to 
slope in the other direction, or that I may 
soon come to a precipice down which I shall 



7 



74 Life at Three-Score. 

suddenly fall to rise no more. At all events, 
I know that I shall — that I must — soon come 
to a place where it will begin to descend; nor 
would I forget that the descent must be much 
more steep than the rise has been, and that 
the hill which has been of so easy a grade on 
the one side may be on the other a most steep 
declivity, or that from the top of the hill 
which it has required so many years to climb, 
the descent to the bottom may occur in a 
moment. 

Permit me to say that I am, at this period of 
my life, hopeful in regard to the world, to truth, 
to religion, to liberty, to the advancement of 
the race. The world is growing better; not 
worse. It is better now than it was sixty years 
ago; it is becoming better every year, every 
month, every day. In its progress society 
takes hold of all that is valuable, or that con- 
stitutes real improvement, and will not let it 
die. That which is worthless is superseded by 
that which is useful; that which is injurious 
and wrong is dropjoed by the way; that which 
goes permanently into the good order of the 



Life at Three-Score. 75 

world alone is retained. There is more love 
of truth than there was sixty years ago; there 
is more science; there are more of the comforts 
of life; there is more freedom; there is more 
religion. There will be more in the next age 
than there is now; and so on to the end of 
time. Christianity never had so firm a hold 
on the intelligent faith of mankind as it has 
now. It will have a firmer hold on the next 
age, and will extend its triumphs until the 
world — the whole world — shall be converted 
to the Saviour. Old men often feel that the 
world is growing worse. I have not that feel- 
ing now; by the grace of God, I shall never 
have it. I intend to hold on to the conviction 
which I now have at this mature period of my 
life, that the world is becoming better; I design 
to cherish this conviction when I die. I do 
not despond or despair in regard to men; to the 
church; to my country; to the cause of hu- 
manity; to the cause of freedom. I believe 
that the whole world will be converted to truth 
and righteousness; and if I should be spared to 
that period when I should be willing to fill up 



76 Life at Three-Score. 

that part of the text which I have omitted 
now, and to speak of myself as "old and gray- 
lieaded" I intend that there shall be at least 
one aged man who will take a cheerful and 
hopeful view of the world as he leaves it. 
Happy will he be who shall live in those times 
that are coming upon the world, and who shall 
see the full development of the things now 
springing up on the earth which tend to the 
recovery and redemption of the race ! It is 
much to have lived sixty years in a period of 
the world like that which is now past ; it will 
be a much greater thing to live in those brighter 
and happier years which are soon to follow. 
With my views of heaven, I can indeed envy — 
even if envy were ever proper — no one who is 
to remain on the earth; and yet there are scenes 
to occur here below which one who cherishes 
such views as I do, and who is about to leave 
the world even with the hope of heaven, could 
not but desire to witness. I would be glad if 
these remarks might show you that as men 
advance in life it is not necessary r , though it is 
so common , to feel that the world is becoming 



Life at Three- Score. 77 

worse ; and that a man who is soon to leave the 
earth himself may take such a view of human 
affairs as to enable him to utter a cheering 
word to those who are entering on the struggles 
of life, and show them that there is much for 
the church to hope for, much to live and 
labour for. 

Finally. I am personally hopeful in regard 
to the future world. I cherish the hope that I 
may reach heaven ; and that, having been so 
long a professor of religion, I may be "kept 
from falling," and be preserved unto the eternal 
kingdom of the Eedeemer. On this point, per- 
taining so much to a man's private feelings, 
and to his personal relations to God, it is not 
proper that I should in a public manner say 
more than this. But I know how a man ought 
to feel who has reached the sixtieth year of his 
life ; I know how a Christian minister ought to 
preach, — what such a man should live for; what 
he should aim to do; what spirit he should be 
of. I know how a man ought to live who feels 
that he is rapidly approaching heaven — how 
he ought to labour; to pray; to wait; to hope; 

7* 



78 Life at Three-Score. 

to be patient; how he ought to be found at the 
post of duty, and to gird himself for the last 
conflict. I shall accomplish what I ought to 
accomplish; shall live as I ought to live; shall 
be faithful as a pastor as I ought to be faithful ; 
shall preach as I ought to preach ; and shall 
die with the bright anticipations which a Chris- 
tian man ought to possess, and which I most 
earnestly desire may be mine when I die, very 
much as I am sustained by your prayers. Is 
it improper, then, to ask your prayers, that " 1 
may finish my course with joy, and the minis- 
try which I have received of the Lord Jesus, 
to testify the gospel of the grace of God !" 



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From Mr. Barnes's Dedication to Judge Demo. 

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and eternal realities." — Puritan Recorder. 

" Such exhibitions of pulpit eloquence will prove acceptable to the Christian public 
generally, and will serve as an excellent model, in most respects, for young ministers." 
— The Presbyterian. 

" Eloquent without pretence, rhetorical without being florid, and glowing with the 
zeal, the piety, the spirituality, of the gospel." — N. Y. Observer. 

" Poet, orator, metaphysician, theologian." — Dublin University Magazine. 

a They are very able sermons, — very far superior to any thing we have received from 
the British pulpit in these latter days." — Presbyterian Herald. 

Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy. 

By William Archer Butler, M.A., late Professor of Moral Philo- 
sophy in the University of Dublin. Edited from the author's MSS., 
with Notes, by Wm. Hepworth Thompson, M.A., Fellow of Trinity 
College, and Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Cam- 
bridge. In 2 vols, crown 8vo. Cloth, $3. 

The publishers regard this work as one of the most valuable additions to intellectual 
science which have been made for many years. They believe that in no work in the 
English language has the attempt to render attractive what, in other hands, has too 
often seemed the most dry and repulsive of studies, been equally successful. The 
metaphysical acuteness, the profound erudition, and the conscientiousness of the 
author, render him one of the safest of guides to the student of Ancient Philosophy. 
" What is Mental Philosophy ? What is the history of its evolution ? What is the 
secret of that wondrous hold which the great masters of antiquity have had upon the 
foremost thinkers of so many generations of men ?" are questions which the author 
has handled with a skill, a judgment, and a range of knowledge which leave the in- 
quisitive reader but little to desire. While it includes nearly all that is valuable in 
the treatises of other writers, the publishers feel authorized, in view of the high and 
emphatic endorsement it has received from some of the most eminent thinkers, to 
claim for the work a position which, in some respects, is not occupied by any other 
book on the same subject. 

" For these Lectures we cannot express our admiration in too ardent terms. They 
are unmatched in our language, and, we think, in any language, for the treatment of 
their theme. * * * No discussion of the system of Plato can compare with his for the 
union of exact knowledge and clear conceptions of a glowing yet subdued eloquence, 
and an affectionate and almost personal regard for the Divine Philosopher." — New 
Englander. 

" A work of the greatest value, from one of the greatest minds of the age. The 
author was in the best and largest sense a Christian Philosopher." — Banner of the Cross. 

3 



Parry and McMillan's Publications. 



§1 Sartor ai t\t f iterator* ai % Into Sfc 



I. Poets and Poetry of America. 

The Poets and Poetry of America ; embracing Selections from the 
Poetical Literature of the United States, from the time of the 
Revolution. With a Preliminary Essay on the Progress and Con- 
dition of Poetry in this country — and Biographical and Critical 
Notices of the most eminent Poets. By Rufus W. Griswold. 
New edition ; copiously illustrated with Portraits, from original 
designs, on steel; revised, enlarged, and brought down to the 

present time. 1 vol. 8vo. Cloth $3.00 

Cloth extra, gilt edges 3.50 

Calf backs, marbled edges, , , 4.00 

Turkey morocco, extra 5.00 

"We think in this beautiful volume the reader will find nearly all that is worth 
reading in American poetry." — Boston Morning Post. 

" Mr. Griswold's work is honorable to the character and genius of the American 
people." — Thomas Campbell, author of " Tlie Pleasures of Hope." 

"The critical and biographical notes are brief, but discriminative and elegant." — 
Bishop Potter's " Hand-Book for Readers." 

II. The Female Poets of America. 

By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Illustrated with Portraits from original 
artists. New edition; revised, enlarged, and brought down to 

the present time. 1 vol. 8vo. Cloth $3.00 

Cloth extra, gilt edges., 3.50 

Calf backs and corners, marbled edges , 4.00 

Morocco extra * 5.00 

Dr. Griswold's biographical narratives display a great deal of spirit and tact. His 
criticisms exhibit a thorough familiarity with the writings which he reviews, and are 
animated with sensibilities and perceptions kindred in their delicacy and ardor with 
that inspiration from which the verses themselves have flowed. They are searching, 
truthful, comprehensive, and candid in their character, and always graceful and elegant 
in style." — New York Tribune. 

" Dr. Griswold has performed the duties of his undertaking with a diligence, a taste, 
and a discrimination which we doubt whether any other man in this country could have 
equalled. The selections are copious and judicious, and the criticisms upon them are 
delicate and just." — Morris and Willis's Home Journal. 

III. Prose Writers of America. 

The Prose Writers of America. "With a Survey of the Intellectual 
History, Condition, and Prospects of the Country. By Rufus 
Wilmot Griswold. Illustrated with Portraits from original 
designs. New edition. Complete in one vol. 8vo. Cloth, §3.00 

Cloth, extra, gilt edges 3.50 

Calf backs, marbled edges 4.00 

Turkey morocco, extra 5.00 

"We deem this book by all odds the best of its kind that has ever been issued." — 
JV. Y. Courier and Inquirer. 

" Mr. Griswold's book has been executed honestly, ably, and well, and is a valuable 
contribution to the literature of the country." — Knickerbocker. 

"It is a faithful view of our best prose writers and their productions." — Boston Atlas. 

"It is a work of great research, and the task must have required an immensity of toil 
to draw from the mass of publication that which is most likely to interest the publio 
and to afford a perfect view of the peculiar powers of the writer." — NeaVs Gazette. 



Parry and McMillan's Publications. 






faces' ffeforiral plmtrg. 

Containing the five popular works described below, bound in uniform 
style. 9 toIs. Cloth, extra §9.00 

Memoir of the Empress Josephine. 

Historical and Secret Memoirs of the Empress Josephine, first wife 
of Xapoleon Bonaparte. By Mad'lle M. A. Le Noioiand. Trans- 
lated from the French by Jacob M. Howard, Esq. With Por- 
traits. Two volumes, 12mo. Cloth, gilt $2.00 

This is one of the most interesting works of the day, containing a multiplicity of 
incidents in the life of Josephine and her renowned husband, which have never before 
been in print.'"' — JV". 0. Times. 

'•Affords the reader a clearer insight into the private character of Xapoleon than he 
can obtain through any other source." — Bait. American. 

Memoirs of Marie Antoinette. 

Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. By 
Madame Campan, First Lady to the Bedchamber of the Queen. 
From the third London edition. With a Biographical Introduc- 
tion from the "Heroic Women of the French Revolution," by M. 
De Lamartine, Member of the Executive Government of France. 
New edition, with three additional Chapters. With Portraits. 
Two volumes. Cloth, extra , $2.00 

"This delightful work, abounding with historical incidents connected with one of the 
most stirring periods of French history, presents the reader with the personal annals of 
one of the most amiable and excellent women that ever shared the honors of royalty." 
— Baltimore Sun. 

Memoirs of Anne Boleyn. 

Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, Queen of Henry the Eighth. 
By Miss Bexgee, author of "Memoirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Hamil- 
ton." Second American from the third London edition. With 
a Memoir of the Author, by Miss Aikin. With Portrait. 1 vol. 
Cloth §1.25 

"Xo more valuable or instructive work can be added to a general library." — Newark 
Advertiser. 

Memoirs of Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Memoirs of the Life of Mary, Qu^en of Scots ; with Anecdotes of the 
Court of Henry II., during her residence in France. By Mis3 
Bexger, author of the " Memoirs of Anne Boleyn." With Por- 
trait. Two volumes, 12rm>w $2-00 

"No lengthy review of this work is necessary to insure it a perusal from our readers, 
for no reader of history can fail to take a deep interest in the unfortunate Mary ; and 
our friends who are preparing volumes for winter-evening perusal will find these every- 
way worthy their attention.'' — Boston Evening Gazette. 

Memoirs of the Q,ueens of France 

Memoirs of the Queens of France. By Mrs. Forbes Bush. From the 
last London edition. With Portraits. 2 vols. 12mo, Cloth, $2.00 

' : These memoirs will be found not only peculiarly interesting, but also instructive, 
as throwing considerable light upon the manners and customs of past ages." — Western 
Continent. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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022 168 898 3J 

Parry and McMillan's Publications. 

Lectures on English Literature. 

Lectures on English Literature, delivered in the Chapel Hall of the 
University of Pennsylvania, by Professor Henry Reed. With a 
Portrait. Edited by his brother, William B. Heed. 1 vol. 12mo. 
Cloth $1.25 

"The book is in every way a most creditable contribution to the Library of Critical 
Literature." — London Leader. 

"These lectures bear the marks of ripe scholarship, and an accomplished mind."— 
Presbyterian. 

Lectures on English History; 

As Illustrated by Shakspeare's Chronicle-Plays, and on Tragic Poetry. 
By Henry Reed. Edited by his brother, William B. Reed. 1 
vol. 12mo $1.25 

*<In this posthumous volume by the late lamented Professor Reed, we have another 
evidence of the delicacy of his taste, his various and elegant culture, and his cordial 
appreciation of the great master-piece of English literature." — Harpers Magazine. 

u The work is no ephemeral production, but will take its place in standard literature 
as one of elegant and philosophical criticism." — Dollar Newspaper. 

Political Lectures. 

By the late Henry Reed, Professor of English Literature and History 
in the University of Pennsylvania. Being two Lectures on the 
History and Philosophy of the American Union, delivered in 1853, 
at the City of Washington. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth $0.38 

Free from party or sectional reference, comprising only the history of the formation 
of the Union, and are instructive and patriotic." — Baltimore American. 

Lectures on the British Poets. 

By the late Henry Reed, Professor of English Literature in the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. 2 vols. 12m o. Cloth $2.00 

These Lectures extend over the whole course of English Poetical Literature, from the 
earliest attempt in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries down to our own days, — the 
days of Scott and Wordsworth and Byron. The criticisms on the late poets are very 
elaborate. They are as characteristic of the refined taste and philosophic spirit of the 
accomplished writer as any thing that has come from his pen. 

Art and Scenery in Europe, with other Papers : 

Being Fragments from the Portfolio of the late Horace Binney Wal- 
lace, Esq., of Philadelphia. 1 vol. crown 8vo. Cloth $1.25 

"Mr. "Wallace was a man of beautiful, if jot of blameless, character. He was a man 
of genius, a man of scholarship, a man of talent. * * * The book is one of intense in- 
terest." — The Churchman. 

'• These fragments are indeed rich and beautif 1 !. There is hardly a page that is not 
rich with sparkling gems of thought." — Bannr'^. *-f the Cross. 

"In every scrap of this precious portfolio, cilcTo will be found some striking originality 
of thought, some evidence of a bold and independent spirit shaking off the trammel of 
a false taste or a false philosophy, and demonstrating, with the conscious power of a 
master, the beautiful and the true." — National Intelligencer. 

Literary Criticisms and other Papers. 

By the late Horace Binney Wallace. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth.... $1.25 

"Mr. Wallace was, undoubtedly, a man of rare literary ability." — Boston Post. 

'•'These papers are marked by a discreet use of language, great affluence of thought, 

a cultivated taste, b. wide acquaintance with literature, a clear knowledge of the topics 

of the hour, and an earnest will. They are an honor to the memory of the departed, 

ft to the living."— Congregationalist. 



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022 168 898 3 



